After our short stay at Prague, we were on our way to Beijing! At the check-in counter, I asked the Hainan Airlines staff if there were other window seats available since my kids prefer window seats to keep them company. She said “no”. The plane configuration was 2-4-2, their system assigned my kids and I in the middle row of 4 while my mom and Jason were in the row in front of us stuck in the middle between two strangers!! I was thinking the flight must be full since they canceled our flight and put all of us on this flight. Once the flight was fully boarded, I still see a lot of empty rows, including rows of 2 seats on each side! The flight attendant announced to sell additional empty seats and rows for as low as 700 RMB (around $100 USD)!!! WTH!!! I have never seen an airline this greedy! Sure, you want to maximize your profit but at least have some sympathy; let families and the elderly select their seats at check-in. With so many empty rows, I suspect they purposely divide up families! The 10-hour flight was awful; their seats were old and falling apart, and everything looked dirty, this was one of the worst long-haul flights I have ever taken!
We arrived Beijing early morning at 5:20 AM, immigration was not so bad this time compared to our first time through Beijing 3 years ago as China launched the electronic customs and immigration form that you can fill out to obtain a QR code before your arrival. Last time the whole entry process and wait took over 2.5 hours, this time….in less than an hour! We booked a 7-seater van via WeChat’s Didi microapp (like Uber) to Hampton by Hilton Tianjin Five Great Avenues. We stayed at Beijing last time so we wanted to check out Tianjin – around a 2 hours drive from Beijing.
The most important phone apps to have in China:
- WeChat (this is like a one-stop app for all), it is more than just for messaging, there are microapps embedded in WeChat including Didi (Uber equivalent), Dianping (restaurant reviews and bookings), and much more. Also, WeChat Pay that you must validate beforehand (takes up to 3 business days to verify) to link your credit card so you can use WeChat Pay to pay everything, everywhere! Note that any payment of more than 200 RMB incurs a 3% platform fee (most of the stuff you’ll ever buy will be less than this amount but for restaurant bills, best to pay with a no foreign exchange fee credit card). Alternatively, Alipay works just as well but since I have WeChat, why bother with another app/process.
- Didi (Uber equivalent), it is also available as a microapp in WeChat and works perfectly fine for all our trips.
- Dianping for restaurant reviews, bookings, and restaurant set meals. Those set meals could be a significant saving!
- Railway 12306 – the name might sound strange but it’s an official app for China’s Railways. You can book trains up to 2 weeks in advance, for peak travel day including holiday; set an alarm to book as soon as it’s available, as those highspeed train can sell out!
- Google Translate – most of the restaurants’ menus are in Chinese only so for those who can’t read Chinese, Google Translate is your China trip companion.
Also note that I used to just use T-Mobile’s free slow international data and I managed to survive on the slow network when traveling internationally. However, that changed on our first trip to China at Hangzhou where there was barely any cellular service! I ended up purchasing the eSIM via Klook (appreciate if you use my referral link) and it worked very well (can access to all Google and Facebook sites).
We got there at around 9 AM and surprisingly our rooms were ready yay! Our rooms looked modern but their walls were paper-thin; we could hear everything from even the room across the hallway!
The toilet area in our room was as big as the room!
The room was a lot more comfortable than the apartment in Prague and it was less than $100 USD per night. Everything in China is cheaper! After we settled down, we took Didi (very inexpensive even we booked the “luxury van” to fit 5 of us, it was only 46 RMB ($6.81 USD) for a 15-20 min ride, there were cheaper options for 4 passengers for less than half of that so we could’ve save by booking to cars but saving of $1 it’s fine!) to have our lunch at Tianjin Bai Jiao Yuan (天津百饺园) literally translated as garden of hundreds of dumplings. They have a few branches throughout the city, we went to the one closest to hotel but still around 15 min drive away.
We got there at 11 AM, early for lunch, so there was no wait. The waitress asked if we would like a table in their main hall or private suite. Most of the higher-end restaurants in China offer two types of seating areas: main hall along other tables or private suite (sometimes has its own private bathroom). There’s no tipping in China but there is “service fee” and that’s where the private suite’s service fee per person is higher than the main hall. Sometimes the service fee includes the disinfected dishes, bowls, cups, silverware, and napkins. Otherwise, the menu will note those additional charges. Those additional charges are nominal like 2 RMB for napkins and 10 RMB for diningware. In case you see a big plastic bowl and hot water were the first thing on the table, even though the silverware and diningware were wrapped in plastic to indicate those have been disinfected, Chinese like to clean one more time by rinsing them in hot water LOL! Those are the restaurant in China culture FYI 😉
Back to the menu….their menu has other dishes besides dumplings, ranging from as low as 38 RMB to the most expensive dish the lamb rack for 168 RMB (very cheap compared to Boston prices). Also, no tipping in China so that alone save 20% of the bill!
For dumplings, they make it fresh to order so they have a minimum of 2 taels (I think that’s the weight measurement they use) per order and 2 taels equals to 10 dumplings thus minimum of 10 dumplings LOL. The prices below are per taels (per 5 dumplings) so x2. The seafood dumplings are 37.6 RMB which is around $5.55 for 10 freshly made dumplings with seafood were very inexpensive. They have 25 flavors, common flavors like pork with seafood, crab meat, and uncommon flavors like egg squash vermicelli, mala crayfish, shrimp and tofu.
I would love to try all those uncommon flavors but since 10 per order, there’s no way we could try that many flavors. We tried only 3…that was 30 dumplings!
The classic pork with seafood was great, the shrimp was fresh and crunchy.
The crab meat was tasty but a little bit too salty for us.
The seafood one was delicious as well but slightly salty. We found their dumplings were on the salty side (still fresh and good), perhaps, Tianjin’s local taste is on salty side.
Besides the dumplings, we ordered other dishes: pineapple sweet and sour pork was very good (our kids love it), the marinated duck was like Cantonese’s dried preserved duck (salty too but great with white rice), and stir-fried romaine lettuce.
Most of our meals in China cost less than $50 USD for 3 adults and 2 children and we always overorder to try more dishes. The restaurants we tried were highly rated, famous ones so pricings are on the higher-end side but still very affordable!!!
After lunch, we took Didi to Tianjin’s “Ancient Culture Street” (古文化街), this is a pedestrian-only shopping street filled with ancient Chinese architectural-style houses. Most of the shops are selling handicrafts and local specialties.
The kids love the ancient Chinese coin on the ground.
The street is lined with red lanterns and flags.
Luckily, it was cloudy so the temperature was tolerable and not too humid. We had fun browsing each shop and bought local snacks as souvenirs and a pair of silver bracelets for my daughter.
Tianjin is famous for its chestnuts and porcelain dolls; those are the two highly recommended souvenirs to bring home!
After shopping, we took Didi to the Porcelain House (瓷房子). Admission to the Porcelain House was $19.24 for 3 adults. The Porcelain House is made up of broken porcelain pieces and the style reminded me of Gaudi’s architecture. The house is a museum of pottery and antiques but poorly organized.
It said the Porcelain House is the world’s top fifteen most uniquely architecturally designed museums.
The exterior design is quite impressive.
The interior also decorated with porcelain pieces:
Even the ceiling has no empty white spaces:
Look out from the balcony:
But as a museum of pottery and antiques, it wasn’t organized at all. It looked more of a storage place for those antiques than museum. There was no description/explaination of each piece!
It was a short visit and I am debating if it is worth the admission fee or not. It’s sure an architectural piece (but not unique once you have seen Gaudi’s work) but more for photos than being a museum in my opinion. After that, we noticed a post office right across the street from the house so we went in to check it out. Jason bought a few stamp books including Ne Zha and My Little Pony-themed stamp books! After the shopping and a little bit of sightseeing, we went back to our hotel to take a break before heading out for dinner.
For dinner, we went to a steam-themed restaurant called Three Fishermen.
Once you walked in, there was a display of all the live seafood they sell; OMG look at all those varieties!
We booked a private suite this time for more comfort and privacy. Jason went down to pick the seafood…this is what he ordered. Mixture of clams:
They have a time chart for how many minutes to steam each type of food to ensure fully cooked!
The clams were so fresh and “sweet” seafood taste! The fish was super fresh; its meat was smooth and tender, I like that they put peppercorn to add a little kick to its flavors, steamed along with sticky-rice cake to absorb the essence yum yum!
The waiter also poured rice into the steaming bowl to cook along while steaming the seafood so the dripping essence became soup to cook the rice!
Their squash was so sweet that I have never had such a good squash before.
We finished up our meal with the most flavorful seafood congee ever. Everything tasted so fresh and good, and the best of all: affordable for only 598 RMB ($88 USD) for all those seafood! Our first day in Tianjin was enjoyable; we had plenty of good food, shopping, and sightseeing. Unlike the popular Beijing, Tianjin is more relaxing and not as crowded.
